Detroit disciples and Detroit Lions fanatics both old and new: how should we be feeling this week? Are we insulted, or inspired? Justified… or terrified?
This Sunday night our Lions begin defense of their first-ever NFC North title with a nationally televised game at Ford Field, a 2023 playoff rematch against the Los Angeles Rams led by former Detroit quarterback-hero-turned-mortal-enemy Matthew Stafford (NBC Sunday Night Football, 8:20 p.m., WDIV/Channel 4). Our team’s stated mission is to return to the NFC Championship game for the second year in a row, win it this time, and go on to the Super Bowl, thus ending its franchise embarrassment as the only NFC team never to make it to the Big Game.
However, check out almost any sportsbook or gambling app you like (not that we’re advocating gambling, you understand), and you’ll find the back-to-back Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs and the San Francisco 49ers are the odds-on favorites to win Super Bowl LIX next February in New Orleans. Our Lions — the golden boys of pro football in 2023 who came within one horrific, wish-it-was-forgettable second half of making the Super Bowl last year — are mentioned… but so are the other 29 teams.
Why, Aretha would be outraged! No R-E-S-P-E-C-T. Another Detroit diss.
But then again, wait! That might mean the pressure and focus are off. Maybe our Lions can sneak up on some teams, like they did last season!
But then again… no. Behold the current “Football Preview 2024” issue of Sports Illustrated. Not only is the timeless national sports publication picking our Motor City Kitties to win it all this season, it plastered Honolulu Blue and Silver all across the cover of its August-September double issue.
“DRIVE TO REVIVE,” the headline explodes, above a photo of quarterback Jared Goff, wide receiver Amon-Ra St. Brown, and offensive lineman Penei Sewell chillin’ around and inside a classic white Ford Fairlane 500 Skyliner with retractable hardtop, owned by Lions season ticket holder Ryan Talaga. The convertible was built in 1957… the last year the Lions won an NFL championship.
“The Resurgent Lions,” the cover continues. “Right Team. Right Town. Right Time.” Yeah, right. SI is more famous for its swimsuit editions than its pigskin prognostications, and there’s a reason: its pick of the 2004 New England Patriots was the last time the magazine got it right. Add to that the longstanding belief that appearing on the magazine’s cover can be a jinx (and whether you believe in jinxes or not, some of the coincidences with SI’s cover personalities are far more tragic than a mere football season), this could be ample cause for wringing of hands and grinding of teeth. Oh, grit! Have we been cursed before the season even starts?
Highly doubtful, for this is a new era in Lions Land. This franchise sucked for so long you could be forgiven for believing they were owned by the Hoover family, not the Fords. Even if you are part of the “sportsball is stupid” social media tribe, all Detroiters were at least anecdotally aware of the Lions’ reputation as the laughingstock of the NFL.
Admit it: you cared. Some cared more deeply than others, having been attached to the team during a Matt Millen era so disastrous that the cheerleaders should have been on the FEMA payroll.
That is, until the Fords went rogue in 2021, hired their former tight end Dan Campbell with no head coaching experience, paired him with former Rams scouting director Brad Holmes (named Lions executive vice president and general manager), and let them do the right thing.
It took the pair two years to redesign and build the product, but their 2023 Crew Honolulu blew the doors off the league, igniting the often-sodden hopes of their longsuffering, facepainted faithful and galvanizing formerly disinterested Motown masses even more than the glory days of Hall of Fame running back Barry Sanders in the 1990s.
Holmes was named the Pro Football Writers Association Executive of the Year in ’23, and the fruits of his and Campbell’s labors were reflected at the box office. “The 2023 season was the first time, according to our ticketing folks, that our season tickets had ever sold out and we went into a waitlist scenario at Ford Field,” says Lions Corporate Communications Manager Ellen Trudell.
Season tickets for 2024 sold out in the blink of a cat’s eye as well, and fans now on the waitlist for 2025 were given first crack at standing room only tickets this season as part of their deposit. Which means… even the SRO tickets were virtually gone before the preseason began. “I have been with the Lions since 2012, and I’m fairly certain that’s the first time that has happened at Ford Field,” Trudell marvels.
And the benefits of a stadium jam packed with roaring, leather-lunged zealots was patently obvious during the last preseason contest against the Pittsburgh Steelers. The decibel level inside Ford Field frequently exceeded that of a jet engine, forcing the Steelers offense into several critical mistakes.
“Our fans, this was crazy,” Campbell said after the game. “I told our players before we came out, ‘Do you understand this is the best environment you’re going to find in a preseason game, for sure? And we’re not even into the regular season yet, guys.’
“So, you talk about home field advantage, you can only imagine what this is going to be like on Sunday night. This is the best, our fans are the best. We just got to keep doing our job, keep winning, and give them something to cheer about. Because they’re going to do their part.” In that regard the regular season schedule sets up favorably for the Lions, with three of its first four games and four of its last six at home.
As you might guess, bars and restaurants surrounding Ford Field will be competing for an all-out fan invasion unlike any they’ve seen before. For example, Erik Olson of Thomas Magee’s Sporting House Whiskey Bar in Eastern Market says they are throwing a pre- and postgame patio party Sunday with onetime Pistons DJ Legendary J. Hearns providing the music on the wheels of steel, the Eat at Bert’s BBQ truck for food, and a boxing team from Belfast, Northern Ireland as their guests at the game. No chance of a fight breaking out in that section.
The Lions racked up some truly impressive statistics last season: top five in the NFL in virtually every offensive category (points scored, rushing yards, passing yards, red zone efficiency) behind QB Goff while averaging 27 points per game; boasting a rookie, Sam LaPorta, who led all tight ends in scoring, and racking up the most touchdowns in franchise history. That Michigan man, defensive edge rusher Aidan Hutchinson, made the Pro Bowl in just his second year, recording the most sacks (11½) of any Lion in history through two seasons.
They also boasted the No. 2 rushing defense in the NFL, but their defensive secondary was, to put it politely, not quite as good. That’s why Campbell and Holmes focused on pass defense during downtown Detroit’s hugely successful NFL Draft this spring, selecting cornerbacks with the team’s top two picks: Terrion Arnold from the University of Alabama and Ennis Rakestraw, Jr., from the University of Missouri.
Arnold looked impressive in the preseason opener against the New York Giants, and an improved defensive line should aid the secondary as a whole. But as Lions TV Network analyst and former Detroit wide receiver Golden Tate noted during a recent telecast, “What I worry about is that they haven’t played together much. And at the cornerback position you’re going to be thrown different types of formations, and you have to be able to communicate right away.”
There is some fan concern about the wide receiver position, worry that wasn’t eased when the team released former Cass Tech and University of Michigan standout Donovan Peoples-Jones during training camp. There was hope he could help fill the void left when receiver Josh Reynolds departed in free agency, but there is certainly no room for sentimentality in the No Foolin’ League. The new hope is that St. Brown, Jameson Williams, Kalif Raymond and rookie Isaiah Williams can grab their share of balls going forward.
All in all, the Lions head into the 2024 season with hopes that are higher than Willie Nelson’s road crew. This is territory they have not prowled before, as the hunted rather than the hunter. Can they claim the Big Trophy next February in the Big Easy? Only time, injuries, and the bounce of the oblong ball can tell.
Feeding into the hype, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer listed a Lions Super Bowl win at No. 6 on her list of 53 Birthday wishes. From your lips to the football gods’ ears, Big Gretch.
As Ford Field fans realized last season (or should have), the excellence at home games wasn’t only coming from the team. In March, the NFL announced that the Lions’ gameday experience was ranked No. 1 among all 32 teams in the league, earning the second-highest grade in the history of the league’s “Voice of the Fan” polling system.
With fan expectations this year higher than a Jack Fox punt, how do you make the best even better?
“We do think it’s harder, and I think that’s a good thing,” says Emily Griffin, the Lions senior vice president, marketing, and brand. “To be a compulsive improver, and relentlessly dissatisfied. Efforts by so many members of my team, meticulous attention to detail that at times might have seemed even overboard, but the sum of its parts turned into a really beautiful thing. The product our fans saw and got to experience, particularly during the postseason, was years in the making.”
Griffin’s marketing team, which unveiled three new Lions uniform combinations during the NFL Draft, swells to well over 100 during the season, including the Lions cheerleaders, team mascot Roary, the Honolulu Boom drumline, and support personnel. She’s not prone to give away details (we know, because we asked), but Griffin teases, “We are revamping a little bit of our pregame show. Showtime is 20-25 minutes before kickoff, and we really want to make sure that it’s enticing for fans to get to the stadium early to be in their seats. We want a full stadium when the kickoff takes place, because that’s when we need our fans. If we’re going on defense first, that’s when it’s time to bring it.
“At its core, our mission is to create the greatest home field advantage possible for our football team, and to give the fans an experience they cannot get at home. We have a lot of exciting things planned for the season, and we’re very excited to get it underway.”
This franchise carried around an acronym — SOL, for “Same Old Lions” — for so long, it began to sound like a Motown chorus. And since this is a music publication at its core, Metro Times asked a few media observers to put these Lions into musical terms.
“This team, man, you know who they’re like?” asked modern-day Lions Pro Bowl legend and current radio color analyst Lomas Brown, eyeing the team coming off the practice field after one recent Allen Park workout. “Earth, Wind and Fire. They’re a mixture. They bring everything.”
“The team reminds me of Creedence Clearwater Revival,” offers Will Burchfield, sportswriter for 97.1 The Ticket. “They were a deliverance for the city. They’ve got a point to prove. They’re gonna make the Super Bowl.”
“They remind me of the Bob Seger classic ‘Like a Rock,’” veteran Detroit News scribe and sports-talk radio lightning rod Bob Wojnowski observes with a wink, knowing he’s invoking the former commercial theme song of Ford rival Chevrolet. “They’re a meat and potatoes team.”
